Spring 2012 Newsletter Released

The Spring 2012 Newsletter was released on April 17. Inside you may find tasty tidbits such as:

• Which member got hit by a truck
• Why a member used high heels, a birthing class, Grey's Anatomy and Joan Rivers to describe our Spring Educational Seminar
• Articles from both our outgoing and incoming Chapter Presidents
• A book review
• And all the juicy details of a member's job change.

To access the newsletter click here: http://www.austinala.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ALA-Spring-2012-NL.pdf

13th Annual Legal Expo

The Austin Chapter Association of Legal Administrators 13th Annual Legal Expo was held on Thursday, August 18th at the Hilton Austin Hotel Downtown. With 54 business partner booths and over 70 Chapter members and invited guests it was a big success.

Something new this year was the addition of a theme to the event. In honor of the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Honolulu the Business Partner Relations Committee decided the theme should be "The Spirit of Aloha." Our business partners went ALL OUT in decorating their booths to match the theme. There were grass skirts and leis all over the place and the theme really added an extra element of fun to the event. A prize was awarded for the best representation of the theme. Frost Bank took home the top spot and received $250 off their 2012 sponsorship package. We had no choice but to award it to them since representative David Landry was brave enough to show up in a coconut bra. Now that is commitment! Coming in second was Oxford Commercial. Rick Whiteley and Greg Johnston really got into the aloha spirit and outfitted their booth with Hawaiian music and hula dancing. (See video below for a brief snippet). Their act was awarded with a few extra drink tickets.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the drawing of a $1,500 stipend to use toward the 2012 Honolulu Conference. Every Chapter member's name was put into a bowl and the winner had to be present to win. After calling 10 names of people that were not still at the conference, the stipend was awarded to Sam Williams from Walsh, Anderson, Brown, Gallegos and Green, P.C. Sam wasted no time registering for the conference and is already getting ready for the event.

Here are a few pictures:

Amanda Koplos, Business Partner Relations Committee Chair and David Landry from Frost Bank

Members pose behind a great cutout

Representatives from Kimball Office show off their spirit

CB Richard Ellis had one of the most beautiful booths

Representatives from Attorney Resource also went all out

Rick and Greg from Oxford Commercial

Representatives from the Hampton Inn and Suites

First Place Booth - Frost Bank

And, as promised here is a little taste of the "show" from Oxford Commercial. Please excuse the laughter in the background.



Trying Something New

Attending the 2011 SHRM National Convention

By Andrew Molnau, CLM, PHR

I had the opportunity this year to attend the national SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) convention in Las Vegas.  There were several reasons that I went to this convention instead of the national ALA convention in Orlando.  First, I had all my CLM credits, and the new credits wouldn’t start to count until July 1st.  Second, I had recently obtained my PHR, Professional in Human Resources Certification, which requires its own set of credentials for hours, and this would be a great way to get started.  Third, I wanted to attend a new and different conference.  And fourth, it was Las Vegas. . . .

Within the first day, a few observations hit me like a brick wall.  The attire was completely different from what you would see at an ALA event.  When I am at an event away from the office, I wear jeans, nice jeans.  But many people wore just about anything, and I mean anything!  The size of the convention was also almost overwhelming.  While the ALA conference had about 1,200 attendees, the SHRM conference claimed they had about 13,000 in attendance.  Nearly every session I attended was filled to capacity even though all the conference rooms were very large.  There was an almost impersonal feel to the sessions and events.  And the vast number of booths in the vendor hall left me speechless, especially after I saw that – after walking the length of the hall – there were even more vendors on another level.

As I attended the conference, it also sank in that this conference was strictly an HR event.  Much of the information covered bridged many different industries, unlike the focus on the legal industry that ALA events provide.  This was quite evident in both the session topics and the types of vendors. 

The Sessions:  The ones I attended were very well done and had the look and feel of most ALA sessions.  My favorite session was “Women are Always Right.  Men are Never Wrong,” presented by a husband and wife team.  They were hilarious together.  As you can imagine, the subject matter lent itself to funny stories and information on how the two sexes communicate – or don’t.  If there is an education suggestion box, ALA should try to book them, whether on a national or regional level.  Given the HR nature of the convention, many sessions had a lot of strategic and overseas focus.    

The Vendor Hall:  The hall was filled with 650 vendors, showcasing everything imaginable.  Many vendors I had never heard of.  Some of the themes that dominated the field were job websites (monster.com); drug testing, background checks, and wellness companies (fitness, health subjects).  There were two whole rows of employee benefit subjects represented by cruise lines (nice employee perk), resorts, Papa John’s Pizza, gift card companies, Mrs. Fields’ cookies, etc.  The giveaways were enormous and iPads were the norm. 

Speakers:  I really enjoyed the closing speech by Michael J. Fox, who shared  his life experiences and his battle with Parkinson’s Disease.  I bought “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future,” an audio book  he wrote.  It is a short, easy read, and quite good.  The opening speaker, Richard Branson of Virgin Group, had an interesting presentation about his ambitions (commercial space flight) and corporate culture.  It was done in an interview format with numerous video “commercials.”  They tried to use Twitter to forward questions to the moderator, but I don’t know if that worked very well.

Should you rush to your boss to ask if you can go?  It could be useful if HR is in your life’s blood and what you do a majority of the time.  It is probably worth attending once in your career to see what it’s like, but the extra cost (their conference is quite a bit more expensive than ALA), might slow down your efforts.  Since my main focus is accounting with the occasional HR role, I found it useful.  The conference is in Atlanta next year, not a vacation destination in my book.  I am lucky enough to be with a firm that supports these types of events (being the accountant, it’s easy to put it in the budget, too).  The local SHRM chapter is pretty active and it would seem easier to try to keep my credentials at the local level.

If you have any questions about this event, I would be happy to answer them.

Andrew Molnau, CLM, PHR

Controller

Burns Anderson Jury & Brenner

amolnau@bajb.com

512-338-5322

We Are NOT Going to Hawaii!

The 2012 ALA Educational Conference and Exposition will be held April 23-26, 2012. It is being held in Honolulu, the second safest city in the United States. It is a cultural center and a prominent location for both business meetings and conferences each year. Yes, Honolulu is on the island of Oahu and the state of Hawaii. Yes, it is one of the most beautiful locations in the world.

But, as the Hawaiians say: "We can't help we're beautiful."

Now is the time to start talking with your partners about your attendance at the Annual Conference. Many firms support their administrators' participation in and involvement with our organization. And this year should be no different. When talking with your partners don't tell them you're going to Hawaii, which brings to mind hula dancers and beverages with little umbrellas. The conference is in HONOLULU a city of more than 500,000 people, a center for health, wellness, technology, international relations, Pacific Rim cultures and international trade.

To offest the additional cost of flying from Austin to Honolulu (average price with advance purchase is about $800) you can register by August 31, 2011 for the SUPER EARLY BIRD price of only $595. That's right, $595. That is $400 off the price of the full registration fee and includes a ticket to both the Welcome Reception and the Grand Finale event.

Additionally, ALA has worked out a great deal with the Hilton Hawaiian Village for rooms at $199 per night, with the rate extended to 3 days before the conference and 3 days after should you wish to take some extra days to experience the Spirit of Aloha. As you can see from the chart below, this is the lowest hotel rate at an Annual Conference in five years.

Keep your eyes out for more information about the Conference and more help for "getting the okay to go" in further communications from our Chapter. See below - you really can afford to go!

Year          Location       Early Bird   Full Reg   Hotel*   Avg Flights*   Total*
2008          Seattle               $715           $870        $220          $375          $1,970
2009          New Orleans     $730           $885        $215          $375          $1,965
2010          Boston               $730           $885        $225          $425          $2,055
2011          Orlando             $795           $945        $229          $400          $2,111
2012          Honolulu            $595           $945        $199          $800          $2,191

It's time to Ignite Your Future.....Renew Your Spirit in HONOLULU!

Convention Center in Honolulu

*The hotel cost is the lowest cost room at ALA's negotiated rate and does not include sales tax, the average flights is the average cost from Austin to the destination at discounted (1+ stops rate), the Total assumes a 4-night hotel stay, early bird registration and an advance-purchase average flight.

Reprinted, in part, with permission from Veronica Tiedt and the Nutmeg Chapter.

Chapter's First Tweetup a Success

Last night Chapter Members met at Cork and Co for the first Chapter-sponsored Tweetup. It was a great evening of reconnecting with members and talking about social media. Of course the first question, even among attendees was "What exactly is a Tweetup?"

A Tweetup is an event where people who Twitter come together to meet in person. Normally this event is to help people who connect online meed in person. You meet with people you might only know virtually and really connect with people to share just a little more than 140 characters at a time. Unlike traditional Tweetups where Twitter-aficionados are already well versed in the Twitterverse, the Chapter's Tweetup was more an opportunity to teach people how to use Twitter. It also gave us an opportunity to explain the "point" of Twitter and to get people thinking about how they are going to use the social media in their own lives as well as in their firms. It was an open forum to ask all your questions and have them answered over a glass of your favorite Chardonnay.

So while we may not have created any new Twitteroos (Twitter expert) we definitely learned a lot. If you're just getting started on Twitter you can find a few of your fellow Chapter members: @amandakoplos, @ddettmann, @ChrisSimsAus, @JamesCornell3, @elainebr8, @BarnesLegalMgmt and @lauraangle. And of course if you even have any questions please feel free to contact me: amanda.koplos@bowmanandbrooke.com.

Kansas City, Here We Come!

September 15-17  Kansas City, MO  Intercontinental Hotel
Registration for the Region 3 & 4 Conference and Expo is Now Open. 

For more in formation and to register, click here!

Join us in Kansas City and Connect in the Heart of America with your
Region 3 and Region 4 colleagues and business partners.

More than 20 educational sessions, you're such to bring back keys to
success!

ALA Austin Member Tweet-Up Happy Hour

Please reserve Thursday, June 23rd, 5:30 p.m. for a special Social Media "Tweet Up" Happy Hour with your ALA friends and colleagues.

As a warm-up for the social media presentation by Amy Knapp of Knapp Marketing at our July luncheon, we’ll be combining several online social media tools and techniques into a fun networking event for ALA members interested in social networking for law firms.

To add to the fun, we are going to add a Twitter element to this event.  To be eligible for a fabulous door prize do the following:

1)  Register for a Twitter Account.

2) Search for #alaaustin hashtag

3) Tweet out that you will be attending our event.

Please feel free to invite your colleagues who may be interested in learning more about social media. 

For more information or questions, contact Brenda Barnes at 512-391-8242.

This is a cash bar event!!!

To Attend Click Here: Attend Event